


Comfort

by LaVieEnRose



Series: The One Where Justin Loses His Hearing [104]
Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Allergies, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Disability, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polyamory, Seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 14:30:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18390293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVieEnRose/pseuds/LaVieEnRose
Summary: Bad days come in different forms.





	Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> at some point i'm going to write something that's not just pure h/c, but really like...am i actually?

Generally if I have the time I call Justin instead of texting him, nowadays. It's easier for him, both mentally and with his bad hand, to talk in ASL, and honestly it makes things go a lot faster on my end because he's pretty infuriating to text with. He'll send me one word answers and I don't know if he's pissed at me or if he's drifted off into his distracted artist headspace, but he wears everything he thinks on his damn face so it's just a timesaver to call him. 

Like, for example, when I called him one Friday at the end of the day to see if he needed me to stop at the grocery store on the way home. I'd been rushing around all fucking day trying to do shit for our clients in China who were having some sort of PR crisis they wouldn't give us the details of, which was extremely fucking inconvenient, and now it was nearly seven and we were finally getting out of there. Justin answered, and he was lying on the couch with that confused, suspicious look on his face. So I knew in about zero seconds.

 **Oh, hello,** I said. **How was your seizure?**

He squinted at me. “I had a seizure?”

**Definitely. You okay?**

He dropped his head down. “I couldn't figure out why I felt so weird.”

**I know. You hurt yourself?**

He shook his head, pawing at one eye. His poor fucking eyes, seriously. They'd been swollen and weepy for weeks no matter what we did, and it was fucking with his vision, making it hard for him to see what people were signing if they weren't close. One of the first goddamn things his mother ever said to me was _see that he takes his allergy medicine_ and I remember at the time wondering how big a deal that could actually be, and then spring hit and he ceased to be function normally unless he took ridiculous doses of three different kinds of prescription shit and I realized oh, okay, so he's defective, send him back to the manufacturer, exchange him for a new one, but...you know, thirteen years later and here he is on my couch, rubbing his poor goddamn eyes. He needed to go back to the fucking allergist. These meds weren't doing shit.

 **Stop,** I said.

He dropped his hand, frustrated. “The colors aren't right.”

**They'll get better.**

“I hope so,” he said, sounding so dubious I almost laughed.

 **Do you remember anything?** I asked him.

He shrugged a little. “Breakfast.”

**Yeah.**

He sat up a little, wincing. **Am I home?**

**Yeah, Smerdyakov, you're home. I'll be there pretty soon, all right? We'll order in dinner.**

“Okay.” He looked around. “Is Evan here?”

**No, he's with me. I'll bring him.**

“Okay.”

 **Lie down and close your eyes.** I hung up just as Emily came in with a bunch more papers. **Are those the faxes?**

**Yeah. It's...a lot more than I expected.**

**I've got to go home, but I can work on these there.**

**Okay.** Emily's been my assistant—and Justin's friend—long enough to know not to question when I say I need to go home.

**You know where Evan is?**

**Down in daycare, I think.**

**Text him and tell him we need to go, please? And see if there's anything on your desk I need to bring with me, and forward me the notes from the three o'clock meeting.**

**Okay. Are you coming in tomorrow?**

I headed to my desk and shut down my laptop. **I don't know yet. Depends if they fucking get back to us on anything more specific I can do.**

**Disney better never put us through this shit.**

**I'll burn them down.**

Evan came in a few minutes later with his messenger bag—a hand-me-down of Justin's—once I was packed up. “Hey. Jane walked.”

I looked up. **You're kidding me.**

“Nope.”

**God. Do not tell the parents. If they find out they missed it—**

“Oh, yeah, lips sealed, wrists bound, whatever. We'll be shocked and amazed when she takes her first steps this weekend. Are we going to the store?”

**No, not tonight. Justin had a seizure, we've got to get home.**

“Is he okay?”

 **Yeah, he's pretty out of it, though. I don't want him alone too long, I feel like he's going to wander.** I'm sure we all remember the fun incident with the police in the park, and just a couple weeks ago he ended up three blocks away without his phone or his shoes after a seizure. Always fun! **He's not sure where he is.**

**Want me to call him from the car?**

**Hopefully he's asleep.**

He was, at least by the time we got home, curled up exactly where he had been when I'd called, breathing noisily and shifting around. I put his hand on his waist to wake him up and checked his head and his bad elbow. He rubbed his eyes until I batted his hand away.

“Hey,” he said.

**Hey. You gonna live?**

He nodded and sat up, slowly. “Tired.”

 **You can go back to sleep.** I moved my finger in front of his face and watched his eyes track it. **You seem better already. I don't think it was a really bad one. I think I just caught you right after it.**

He nodded. “I was at the studio until four, so it couldn't have been long ago.”

**See, already remembering stuff.**

Evan had had a long day too and wanted to unwind, and sadly I had roughly eight hundred too many pages of memos to go through to join him, so he went to Manhattan to meet some friends of Derek's and I worked through the paperwork from the couch instead of going up to the office, which was annoying and inconvenient. Justin hung out with me, sleeping on and off and watching TV on mute, eerily un-talkative when he was awake for his usual self, but not uncommon when he's working through a seizure hangover. He forgets signs, and he loses track of time so he doesn't realize how long he's been quiet. Plus he's just plain fucking tired. I kept half an eye on him while I worked and reached over and rubbed his shoulders when I had a free hand. He'd had his birthday last week, and I'd commemorated the occasion by giving him this long as hell massage, which was supposed to largely just be foreplay for some incredible orgasms, and while of course it was that as well it was hard not to notice how much more easily he moved around the next day, how he seemed to have grown an inch overnight, and, okay, it's not like I was going to do the whole two-hour affair with the oils every night, but I could at least be more consistent about doing _something._

I was drafting some bullshit to go out to the Chinese company's shareholders while Justin messed around in the kitchen when I got an email forward from Emily marked URGENT. “Great,” I mumbled, opening up the attachment, and I didn't move until Justin stomped on the floor a minute later. We don't do a ton of that anymore—the cork doesn't carry vibration well, so it doesn't work for getting his or Evan's attention—but, you know, he was confused, and I was hearing. He was cradling his bad hand to his chest and holding an ice pack to his jaw with the other.

 **Their CEO fucking _killed someone,_** I said.

“What?”

**That's their PR nightmare they've been hiding from us. Their CEO's a fucking murderer and now I have to convince half of Asia not to jump ship. Jesus Christ. This is...Jesus Christ.**

“What are you going to do?”

**I have no goddamn idea. Are you okay?**

“Yeah,” he said, adjusting the ice pack. In case you've forgotten, and I couldn't exactly blame you because I try my damndest to forget it myself, ever since that concussion he had at his mom's house a few years back, Justin's head always hurts. Not that it gave him a lot of pain-free stretches before that, since the bashing, but he used to at least get some relief, and he doesn't anymore. And he somehow manages to live with that without losing his fucking mind. But since his allergies have been bad he's been getting a lot of sinus headaches, and even those are nothing compared to the migraines he sometimes gets. Usually after seizures. It had been a while since he'd had a really bad one.

**I've got to go upstairs and handle this, I need all my shit.**

“Okay.”

I gathered up my papers with a sigh. **You need anything before I go? Did you take something?**

“I think it's just sinuses.”

**Take something anyway.**

He nodded heavily.

**And then sit down, you look dead. You want a movie in?**

He nodded on his way to the kitchen to root through the cabinet that houses the pill bottles. “Whatever's fine.”

I picked some true crime thing he'd seen before so hopefully it wouldn't keep him awake and watched him struggle to get his hand to cooperate long enough to open the pill bottle. **Come here,** I said, and he brought it over and I opened it for him and shook out one. **Under your tongue...good.**

He made a face at the taste, and I kissed his forehead and let him lean into me for a second. 

**Yell up if you need me,** I said.

He nodded. “I'll be fine.”

**Okay.**

I went upstairs to the office and got on the phone and turned on the computer and generally started trying to put out this fucking fire the best I could. Between dealing with the translators and then getting interpreters on the line so I didn't have to spend twenty minutes after each call typing up a summary for Emily, the whole thing was a damn nightmare. The company was being cagey as hell about what exactly had happened, which was about zero percent helpful, and if they had just told us the truth six hours ago I could have been actually helping this whole time instead of putting together vague fucking press releases about how every business goes through its ups and downs. Yeah. Not every business has a fucking axe murderer for CEO. (I had no idea if he used an axe. They _wouldn't fucking tell me anything._ )

I didn't hear from Justin until about an hour later when there was a crash from downstairs while I was in the middle of a phone call. It wasn't particularly loud, but that's only so reassuring. **Shit,** I signed, tucking the phone between my shoulder and ear. But a second later Justin called up, “I'm okay!” in that hoarse, stuffed-up, way-too-loud way of his, and I snorted and covered it with a cough. 

I got off the phone about twenty minutes later and went downstairs to survey the damage. No sign of Justin in the main room, but I found him curled up in bed on top of the covers, his movie playing on the TV in here instead. I probably should have put him here in the first place. 

I came around so I was in front of him. **What'd you break?**

He laughed a little. **Nothing. I tripped over the table.**

**Seizure or stupid?**

**Neither. I couldn't see it, my vision was spotting out.**

**Aura?** That meant we were really in for it.

 **Yeah.** He was being brave.

I reached down and cupped the back of his head. **Okay. Evan will be home soon. What can I get you?**

**Washcloth?**

**Yeah, cold?**

He nodded.

**You should drink some water.**

**It wouldn't stay down.**

**All the more reason.**

He shook his head and closed his eyes, shuddering a little. I went and soaked a washcloth in cold water and checked the temperature of his forehead—a little warm, but he usually runs hot when he has migraines—before I draped it over him.

 **How's your serial killer?** he asked me.

I laughed and groaned. **God. We need to take a vacation after this, okay?**

**Buy my beach house.**

**No, I said a vacation, not a fucking business transaction.**

**How are you the one who makes money in this family?**

**Yeah, I ask myself that every day.** I watched him shift around a little on the bed. Justin rarely lets pain show, and even he can't keep a straight face through migraines, and it was rough watching him try to joke around because I knew he was doing it to put me at ease. **You sure you want the movie on?** I said.

 **Yeah.** The light hurts him, obviously, but he can't sign in pitch black and he gets so goddamn _bored_ when he has migraines. He's Deaf. What the fuck is he supposed to do lying in a pitch-black room with nothing to distract him? 

My phone started ringing, and I have it set so it flashes too, and Justin winced. **Sorry,** I said, and lay one hand carefully over his eyes as I checked the display, then sighed and took it away. **I have to take this.**

**I'm fine, it's okay.**

**Yeah, okay.** I bent down and kissed his cheek, very very lightly; he doesn't really like any kind of touch when he has a migraine, can't even pull the sheets over him. **Later.**

“Later.”

And immediately I was sucked back into the PR nightmare from hell, juggling phone calls back and forth to the company with conference calls with marketing to see what the fuck they recommended and legal to see if getting out of this contract was the right call, or if we could even do it, then touching base with Emily, who was trying to pull together as many details as she could about exactly what the fuck happened and who the hell was in charge of this company now and how likely were they to end up in prison before our contract ran out.

It went on well into the night, thanks to the time difference, and it was hours before I left the upstairs. Downstairs was eerily quiet and I kept forgetting Justin was even home, since normally he's loud as all hell. Every once in a while I'd hear quick footsteps and a few minutes later the toilet flushing, and all I could do was mumble, “Hang in there, buddy,” in-between dashing off emails. On the rare times I was off the phone, I didn't hear much from downstairs for a while, just quiet coughing often enough that I knew he wasn't sleeping; the sleep-coughing is always a lot more brutal.

Evan texted me telling me he was home at around two—he uses the separate basement entrance when he comes home late, so he won't wake me up—and I asked him to check on Justin. It was almost two hours after that that when he showed up at the door to my office, looking tired as hell.

I had just gotten off the phone with a HR guy in China and was writing up a summary of it for Emily. **Hey. Why are you still up?**

He shrugged. **I've been with him.**

**Yeah. How's he doing?**

**I think he's in a lot of pain. Can you help?**

I looked around at the massive piles of shit I needed to do. “Uh...yeah.” I stood up. **Is he talking?** He tends to get really quiet when he's hurting.

Evan shook his head.

**Yeah. Okay.**

Justin was close to where I'd left him hours ago, balled up with his arms around his head. The lights were low but not off, and his breath was coming in harsh, shallow gasps, something between a wheeze and a whimper, and I tried to ignore the tight feeling that gave me in my stomach.

His eyes were closed, so I gave his hand a light squeeze so he'd know I was there. He squeezed back.

I turned to Evan and said, **Can you grab my phone and my laptop?**

“Yeah.”

 **Thanks.** I sat down carefully on the other side of the bed as Evan left, and Justin slowly rolled over to his back and looked at me.

“Hi,” he whispered.

**Hi. Any better?**

“Not yet.” He took a deep breath in and shuddered, and I...struggled to keep my hands to myself, honestly, because I knew it would feel like electricity on him. But it's hard, it's fucking hard to try to rationalize that Justin is fine, that migraines are unpleasant as shit but not dangerous, when there's that idiotic part of my brain that won't stop screaming JUSTIN'S IN PAIN like one of those never-ending car alarms. I'm pretty calm about him being sick unless he's actually dying, probably because he's calm about it and that helps a lot. But he's got this high as fuck pain tolerance, and when that's surpassed, it's like he's not even here. And he's the one who knows how to deal with shit. I just follow him. 

He's sick all the time. He's not in pain like this all the time. We don't...we're not experts at this.

 **I'm going to stay with you,** I said. **Doesn't look like either of us was getting any sleep anyway.**

He blinked at me, and I wondered if he could even make out what I was saying around the auras. And how swollen his eyes were. They looked especially bad, actually, even by his standards. Maybe we needed to start getting this place cleaned twice a week. 

Evan came back and handed me my laptop and my phone. **You're going to stay down here?** he said.

 **Yeah. You should sleep, okay? You did good.** My signing moved the bed some, and Justin whimpered. **Sorry, sorry** I said. **It's okay.**

Evan nodded, already fucking half-asleep on his feet, shook an **I love you,** at us and headed downstairs. **Close your eyes,** I told Justin, and he did, and I turned the brightness down on my laptop as far as it would go and concentrated on moving as little as I could.

Justin was still for a while, coughing too lightly to really help him breathe every once in a while and shivering more than I would have liked. I know Justin's migraines, and at that point I was pretty much was waiting on my signal, and after about half an hour he opened his eyes and said, “Brian,” and I nodded, finished the sentence I was typing, set my laptop to the side, and got him to the bathroom.

Normally I just hang out with him and rub his back when he throws up, but he didn't want that right now. I got him a towel and to kneel on so he wouldn't be right against the floor and filled up a glass of water. He didn't have much in his stomach, just the water and Gatorade Evan had convinced him to choke down, and I winced at how raw his throat sounded. When he was finally done he curled up, his arms folded on the toilet seat and his head down, and just sobbed a little, and I said, **Oh, kid,** and felt my stomach up in my throat.

I crouched down next to him and rested my hand lightly on his back, even though it made him shiver. I found his chin to sign **Water,** on it, and he slowly lifted his head and took the glass from me. His breathing was sounding pretty terrible at this point. He was wheezing so loudly I kept thinking he was talking. His hand shook violently around the glass, but he still managed to rinse his mouth out and drink a little. “God,” he whispered.

 **It's going to get better soon,** I said. **You're almost through it.**

He set the water glass down on the floor and panted. I sat down next to him and watched.

 **We can go to the hospital if you want,** I said. **Get a shot, make it stop.**

He shook his head just a little. **The lights.**

**The lights, yeah. Okay.**

He sneezed suddenly, hard, then groaned and held his head.

 **God, yeah,** I said. **I bet that's not fun.**

He sneezed a few more times and said, “Fuck. Oh my God,” driving his hand into his forehead.

 **Okay, give it a rest.** I cupped a tissue over his nose and gave him a very light kiss on his temple when he sneezed again. **Easy.** He choked out a sob, and I said, **Justin, easy.**

“Back to bed,” he whispered, and I nodded and picked him up, probably more relieved than I should have been by the way he pulled himself reflexively into my neck. I lay him back down on his spot in the bed and checked my phone. I'd missed three fucking calls in that time. 

So I settled in next to him and started returning calls while Justin sniffled and sneezed and shivered next to me. And like, look, Justin's standards for a normal amount of sneezing are about eighty times higher than your average person's, but this still seemed like a lot considering his allergies had been sort of okay the past few days and nothing had changed since then. I looked around the room like I was expecting to see a dog I'd somehow missed, and my eyes landed on the clock on the wall. Shit.

A little background here: most of Justin's meds—his anticonvulsant, antidepressant, the meds to raise his white count and simultaneously the ones to calm his asthma down which suppress his immune system, because this life is a fucking joke sometimes—are once a day affairs. He takes them in the mornings. 

His allergy meds are twice a day.

 **You didn't keep your meds down, did you?** I asked.

**I tried twice.**

**Okay, time for round three.** I reached over him to his nightstand.

“It's not going to work,” he said. “I'm going to be puking again any minute.”

**Damn it. Okay. Use your inhaler at least.**

So he did, but the taste made him nauseous, so, yep, back to the bathroom for us. His shirt rode up around his waist and I saw a smattering of hives on the small of his back. Jesus, he cannot catch a break. Who gets hives from hay fever? 

He tried to take a bath, but there was no water temperature that wasn't excruciating on his skin. He ended up having a seizure after we tried, which I think was because of how fucking badly the hot water hurt him, frankly. It wasn't a very bad one, and honestly it was probably a blessing in disguise because it wiped him out so badly that he finally fell asleep despite the pain. I put the oxygen mask on him once he was out and got back on the phone, but I was getting fuzzy and stupid from lack of sleep and hours of being on-edge watching him. Everything felt like it was taking too long to get to me, like I was hearing everything that wasn't his breathing on some sort of delay.

I ended up on the phone with Emily at around five, when I was just about ready to call it quits. She was on her couch in sweats and looked about how I felt. **They can wait a few hours,** she said. **We need to sleep.**

 **Yeah. Thanks for staying up.** Everyone else had bailed out hours ago. Amateurs. Between Jane and Justin, the two of us are used to the occasional all-nighter.

**Yeah. Is Justin feeling better?**

**No, he's...** I took a deep breath. **He's really hurting.**

**Brian, hey...**

**This is stupid,** I said. **He's fine, he's going to be fine, I'm just...he makes these noises when he's in pain and he doesn't even know that he's making them, he's not trying to fucking get attention or make a big deal out of it because he doesn't even know he's doing it.**

**Brian.**

**I did this,** I said. **All of it. The seizures, his fucked-up lungs, his goddamn immune system. The fucking pain. All of this because I didn't walk him back into the fucking prom.**

 **Stop,** she said.

I pinched the bridge of my nose for a minute until my eyes stopped swimming and I could focus on her.

 **You're tired and being a drama queen,** she said plainly. **Someone you love is in pain so you're sad about it. That's not because it's your fault. It's because it's five in the fucking morning and you're sleep-deprived and dumb. And you love him.**

God. As if boohooing on the phone to a twenty-nine-year-old weren't embarrassing enough. 

**Get some sleep,** she said. **Everything's going to be better in the morning.**

I don't remember falling asleep, but I startled awake around eleven, vaguely out of sorts from some dream I couldn't remember. Justin wasn't there, but I heard movement around the main room and I could tell it was him. I stretched to my phone and texted _come here_ while moving as little as I could, and a minute later he appeared in the doorway holding a mug of coffee in one hand and a tissue over his nose with the other. His hair was tousled and curling over his ears, his eyes were brutally pink and swollen, and there was a patch of hives going behind his ear and disappearing into the scruff around his jaw. He was beautiful.

 **Hi,** I said. **Did you sleep?**

He nodded and sneezed four times, but aside from a small wince after he seemed okay.

I smiled a little. **Your head's better.**

Another nod and sneeze.

**You took your meds this morning, yeah?**

He sniffled into his tissue and lowered it. “Yeah. Still paying for missing the night dose.” His voice was thick and hoarse, tired.

**At least it doesn't hurt, right?**

He nodded, his breath already hitching its way into another sneeze.

I sat up. **You look cute like that. Come here.**

He came over, pouting a little, and fit himself into my arms. His breathing was softly wheezy but actually not all that bad, which was a welcome surprise. Looked like we were finally going to get out of something unscathed.

I kissed his cheek. **You did good yesterday. I know that sucked.**

He attacked his eyes with the back of his hand. “I'm so itchy.”

**I have to see what the fuck I slept through, get back to work.**

He sneezed and nodded. “Are you going into the office?”

**I don't think so, I should have everything I need here. We'll see.**

I ended up staying home, partly Emily said she was going to go anyway so she could take care of things there, partly because I was still exhausted and didn't feel like putting on real clothes, partly in case Justin's migraine came back, and partly because as it happens Evan wasn't feeling well either. The side effects of his meds get to him more some days than others, and he was just having a rough one. By now I'd gotten used to Evan and was starting to get it through my head that he doesn't exile himself because he actually wants attention but feels guilty about it and like he doesn't deserve it, but because he genuinely prefers being alone when he doesn't feel well. Sue me; I'd spent thirteen years managing that first thing.

So I largely left Evan alone, but I wanted to be around in case things went sideways, and every few hours I'd piss him off by checking on him to make sure he was still alive. In between I was back to work, pacing the main floor while I managed conference calls and ran up and down from the office to handle faxes and root through paperwork. I figured Justin might go to his studio now that he was feeling better, but he curled up in his favorite chair by the TV and watched game shows or some shit and generally radiated waves of _I'm in a bad mood_ whenever I had a minute to talk to him. I figured he was worn out from the migraine and cut him some slack, for the most part, though I was getting pretty fucking annoyed picking balled up tissues off the floor every two minutes.

I'd jumped right into work without eating and by two I was starving, and the ducklings needed to eat too. I waved for Justin's attention while I was on hold waiting for the Mandarin translator to work through some new documents. **Can you make something for lunch?**

He looked at me all annoyed. **What?**

**I'm sorry, did I interrupt something important? Your boyfriend needs to eat. And so do you. And so do I.**

**Can't you do it?**

**Jesus, Justin, you don't think I'm a little busy?**

He stood up, blowing his nose, and mumbled something about not being my wife.

**Very nice, Sunshine, thanks.**

Justin sneezed his way over to the kitchen and washed his hands and got stuff out for sandwiches. He drove the heel of his hand into his eye and said something I couldn't make out, between the hold music and how stuffed-up he was.

**What?**

He held up a hand for me to wait, sneezed hard, and then said, **Do you want mustard?**

 **Yeah, just—** I said, then stopped and waited for him to finish sneezing so he could actually fucking see what I was saying, but it took so long that the translator got back on the phone, so I got distracted, and a minute later Justin was throwing a dish rag at me. **Jesus, what?**

 **I asked you a question,** he said.

**I'm trying to manage two fucking conversations in three different languages, maybe be a little patient.**

**Patient? I'm fucking making you lunch,** he said, and sneezed again.

**Yeah, and a very hygienic lunch at that.**

**Then make your own goddamn fucking food!** he said, and stomped back over to the TV like the fucking child he is, and I rolled my eyes and went over and made the fucking sandwiches, because apparently staying up all night taking care of the fucking business that supports this family isn't enough of a contribution. And look, I was not unsympathetic to the fact that he'd had a terrible night, but mine hadn't exactly been peachy either, and it's not like I was acting for the fucking moon right now. If Justin didn't ever do anything the day after he didn't feel well, he'd never fucking do anything.

I made lunch for me and Evan—Justin could starve, whatever—and brought Evan's down and ate mine and then felt bad and made a sandwich for Justin, but he just picked at it anyway so I went back to being pissed off. **Emily's coming over to drop off some files,** I said. **Think maybe you could keep your tissues in the trash can while she's here so she thinks we have some semblance of civility here?**

He blew his nose and glared at me.

**Cool, thanks for the help.**

Emily showed up. She was dressed business casual even though there hadn't been anyone in the office but her. That's my girl. She handed me a stack of files and said, **They shouldn't need much, but you should check everything.**

**Thank you. Seriously.**

**I did want to point something out for you, there's one form that wasn't familiar at all and I'm not sure I did it right.**

**Yeah, they have some archaic stuff in their file.**

“Bri, can you close the door, please?” Justin said. Whined.

I rolled my eyes and said, **Come in,** to Emily and closed the door behind her. She took her shoes off and raised an eyebrow at Justin. 

**You okay?** she said.

He shrugged, pulling his legs up into the chair.

Emily and I sat on the couch and went over a few of the forms. There ended up being a few that we had to retool, so it took a bit. Not her fault; this was all above her pay grade to begin with, and God knows how much sleep she'd had either. Justin was still breathing okay, but he was sneezing pretty constantly by that point and he just looked exhausted. Eventually he got up in frustration and went to our bedroom and closed the door without saying anything.

 **Yikes,** Emily fingerspelled.

**Yeah, he puked up his allergy meds last night. And behold. I have never seen anyone with allergies like his. I thought his meds weren't working but no, apparently it actually could get worse.**

**That must suck.**

I shrugged. **He's been dealing with it since he was a baby. I've seen pictures of him Jane's age with his eyes swollen like they are now. He's used to it.**

She raised an eyebrow.

 **He's breathing okay,** I said. **He's fine. It's just allergies.**

 **That didn't look like _just_ anything to me,** she said, and I fucking felt my heartbeat speed up, that fucking car alarm part of my brain convinced I'd missed something.

 **You think it's bad?** I said.

 **I didn't say that,** she said, turning back to the contract in her lap. **I think it looks miserable.**

She left pretty soon after that, with orders for me to take a break for a few hours, which was probably for the best since I was pretty distracted after that. I went down to check on Evan—sleeping, no fever—and then opened the door to our bedroom and Justin was crying, and God, if everything hadn't already shifted a minute ago with Emily, here we were.

And for some reason the first thing I thought of was way back when, when he was just this seventeen-year-old who didn't want to let me know he wasn't too cool to feel anything, he used to say it was just allergies when he was crying.

How long had Justin been calling this thing he fucking hated _just_ allergies? How long had I been doing it?

Because he _hates_ them. And I knew he did. He hates them with a kind of single-minded intensity he'd never grant epilepsy or his shitty lungs or, well, obviously not being Deaf. They don't give him some broader understanding of the world, or connect him to people, or teach him to slow down; they just make him fucking distracted and foggy and itchy and miserable, and they have for a lot longer than I've been around.

And yeah, maybe it fucking occurred to me then that I worried less about his allergies because they were the one goddamn thing wrong with the boy that we knew were inarguably, unequivocally not my fault, and I didn't at all like what that said about me and why I give him the care that I do and I was extremely ready for that to not be a factor in play in this little life we have.

He sneezed as I sat down next to him on the bed. God, that had to be getting old. 

I kissed his cheek and signed **Bless you,** small.

He rubbed his eye. **Thanks.**

**You want to talk about it?**

He shrugged. **It's so fucking itchy.**

 **Yeah. You hate itchy.** I do know some things about him, even I I fucking forget I do sometimes.

He nodded, pawing at his nose. **It's just...everywhere and I can't get away from it and it all just...sometimes it just reminds me that all of this is going to be here forever, and that it's not even fucking noteworthy.**

God. 

And the thing is, I knew this about him. I'm all busy being fucking relieved that we're back around our baseline, but the baseline is the thing that gets to Justin. He prefers one really bad night to the constant, throbbing reminder that he's going to be dealing with this shit for the rest of his life. I have a lot more trouble with the sharpness, the incidents, maybe because that's something I can conceptualize a lot more than the fucking endless slog of just existing. My brain screams about Justin being in pain because my brain physically cannot fucking scream about Justin not feeling well, because it's fucking _constant,_ and I just...I know it intellectually, but I have to remove myself from the emotion of that somewhat because he is _here_ and he is _mine_ and he is _sick_ and I can't fix it, and he does not get to remove himself from it. Not for a second. 

And Jesus, how much must it fucking suck to feel like the times you get attention, affection, patience, are during the aberrations, during the nights when nobody sleeps, when those don't come around all that much? I mean, what does that say about what you can expect in the day-to-day? About what you deserve?

It's really just fucking amazing how much I can mess up still.

But hey, if I get to be dazzled by his ability to keep going, I can be dazzled by mine too.

 **Will you watch a movie with me?** I said.

He blew his nose. **Don't you need to work?**

**Even God rested for a day. Come on.**

I got him settled on the couch and got him a new box of tissues and another dose of Benadryl and a cool washcloths, and I found a movie he'd already seen a few times—he doesn't like new stuff when he's having a bad day—and encouraged him to curl up into me. He lay his legs across my lap, and I rubbed his shoulders and took turns holding the washcloth over each of his eyes. I let him wipe his damn nose on my shirt because whatever, he's the one who does the laundry, and before too long I felt him start to relax. It's really not so hard, comforting him. It's not so hard at all.

It's going to be here forever.

But I am too.


End file.
